MS Pro slower than CF Card under VFSMark?

[bike1]

I’m getting results with VFSMark 1.1 that rate my cheap PNY 1gb card as much faster than my Sony MS Pro 512mb Magicgate; particularly in the write test (30% vs 135%). Both cards are about half full. If I overclock VFSMark to 265mhz, the MS Pro catches up, but the CF Card is still faster overall at normal clocking and generally much faster if overclocked as well.

This surprises me, particularly as I get stutters playing movies off the CF Card using the hacked driver on my NZ90, but perhaps these benchmarks are normal?

Regards,
B

MS Pro no overclocking
File Create: 158%
File Delete: 143%
File Write: 30%
File Read: 356%
File Seek: 245%
DB Export: 142%
DB Import: 345%
Record Access: 329%
Resource Access: 309%
VFSMark: 212

CF Card no overclocking
File Create: 451%
File Delete: 309%
File Write: 135%
File Read: 305%
File Seek: 453%
DB Export: 517%
DB Import: 470%
Record Access: 441%
Resource Access: 412%
VFSMark: 388

MS Pro VFSMark overclocked to 265mhz with Lightspeed
File Create: 169%
File Delete: 161%
File Write: 29%
File Read: 653%
File Seek: 437%
DB Export: 147%
DB Import: 582%
Record Access: 593%
Resource Access: 548%
VFSMark: 368

CF Card VFSMark overclocked to 265mhz with Lightspeed
File Create: 573%
File Delete: 345%
File Write: 144%
File Read: 498%
File Seek: 694%
DB Export: 588%
DB Import: 669%
Record Access: 696%
Resource Access: 629%
VFSMark: 537

[CliePet]

> I’m getting results with VFSMark 1.1 that rate my cheap PNY 1gb card as much faster than my Sony MS Pro 512mb Magicgate
Looks normal. That jives with some of my measurements [both with VFSMark, and my own Raw VFS timing program]
NOTE: VFSMark has questionable statistics - ignore most of the numbers except the "File Read/Write" tests - they're the least bogus.

NOTE: the NZ90 has a slower memory stick slot. The HHE units are almost twice as fast.
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25950

> I get stutters playing movies off the CF Card using the hacked driver on my NZ90
That happens a lot. I don't know if it is because of the way the VFS is accessed.
The best advice is to try encoding a lower bit rate for the movie.

[bike1]

> The best advice is to try encoding a lower bit rate for the movie.

Hi! I know you have hugely more experience in this than me, and I have a theory I thought you may already have tried?

The Equipment:

I have an NZ90, overclocked to 265mhz with Lightspeed, with TCPMP, and a 1gb CF Card (no MS). Note: if I overclock every app, it seems to lessen the movie jerkiness. I don't know if that's because some background processes are also being accelerated, or if it's just my imagination.

The Problem:

My 300kbps 320x176 xvids (64kbps mp3, 22050hz) pause and skip every few minutes or so (sometimes more often). That is, the movie will pause on a frame, the audio will continue, and the movie will resync in 30-60s and continue until the next pause.

Compare this to watching something encoded for my computer on the NZ90 at about 700kbps 720x400 128kbps mp3. It drops frames, but it rarely actually paused in the same way as the 300kbps does.

Hypothesis:

- the pauses at 300kbps are due to a delay in data being read from the card, perhaps due to an initial read-delay as the card mounts or something?
- as 700kbps is not pausing, perhaps this is due to a sustained read on the card, avoiding the read-delays on the card between separate reads;
- therefore, perhaps there's a magic kbps number that will cause a sustained read from the card that avoids the pauses in movies while not causing too many frames to be dropped.

Unknown variables:
- how much free RAM is recommended in the NZ90, assuming that TCPMP caches read data to RAM.
- I have considered a Kingston Elite Pro or Sandisc Ultra II CF Card, but as the VFSMarks for my existing CF card are all much better than the MS Pro, a faster CF Card may not help me.

What do you think?

:-)

[CliePet]

> I have an NZ90, overclocked to 265mhz with Lightspeed, with TCPMP,...
Suggestion, try ImageConverter 1.x to make a MQV encoded with similar bit rate settings (where possible). Play it with the built-in Movie Player (or FullMoviePlayer) and see if it plays smoothly off the CF (overclocking should not be required in my experience, but try both)

If it does play ok, then I suspect it is something specific to TCPMP or the XVID codec (and talk to picard for a bug fix or at least a more detailed instrumented version). The resyncing problem sounds like a player problem.
If the MQV doesn't play smoothly, that indicates a general problem with the data transfer path (like the CF card or storage driver).

[bike1]

Thanks, if I can't get to a PC to try Imageconverter, is there a Mac equivalent, or alternatively what are the .mqv specs? (mpeg-1? etc).

Cheerio!
Bike1